Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Sink moves ahead

Benefiting from her Republican candidates gashing the heck out of each other, Alex Sink has opened up an unlikely lead in the Florida Governor's race. She's up 36-30 on Rick Scott, with Bud Chiles getting 13% and 37-23 on Bill McCollum with Chiles getting 14%.

Scott and McCollum both have very poor favorability numbers. Their primary battle has completely turned off Democrats and independents, and Republicans aren't seeing them very positively either. 23% of voters have a favorable opinion of Scott while 41% view him unfavorably. While only 34% of Republicans view him positively, 40% of independents and 52% of Democrats see him unfavorably. McCollum's numbers are even worse. Only 16% have a favorable opinion of him with 51% holding a negative one. Just 27% of GOP voters see him favorably, while 59% of Democrats and 57% of independents have an unfavorable opinion of him.

Sink is pretty much a blank slate to voters in the state, with 54% of voters having no opinion of her. Most striking in her numbers is that independents see her favorably by a better than 2:1 margin, 32/15. She is likely benefiting from being able to stay above the fray while the Republican candidates go after each other.

In the head to heads Sink benefits from a more unified party than either Republican candidate and also wins independent voters. She gets 62% of Democrats to Scott's 52% of Republicans and leads him 36-28 with independents. She gets 61% of Democrats to McCollum's 45% of Republicans and leads him 40-12 with independents.

Despite his double digit performance Bud Chiles isn't having a particularly strong impact at this point because he's not pulling disproportionately from either Democratic or Republican leaning voters. Against Scott he gets 14% of McCain voters and 11% of Obama voters, and against McCollum he gets 14% of McCain voters and 13% of Obama voters.

It's been a pretty remarkable turnaround for Sink, who trailed McCollum 44-31 in a head to head contest when PPP last surveyed Florida in March. It's important to note that in the more likely instance that she faces Scott 25% of Republican voters are undecided to only 16% of Democrats so this race should tighten once the GOP has a nominee. How well the GOP can heal and get on the same page after the primary could determine this race though- there's little doubt that Scott and McCollum's supporters hate each other and that could end up handing Sink a victory that four months ago appeared very unlikely.

I'm a Floridian and I sure hope Alex Sink will win! She's fiscally responsible and thinks for herself. Also, her ads and campaign material is positive unlike Scott and McCollum's ads which are petty, negative, and condescending. I can't believe anyone would vote for Rick Scott after pulling off the largest medicare fraud in the country. I guess he thought people wouldn't find out about that.

Tellingly, those results came despite a Republican-tilting sample - this shows a 40/40/20 D/R/I breakdown, but the voter affiliation numbers reported by the Florida Division of Elections show that the registration is 42/36/22. Factors like cellphone availability, whether Democratic-leaning seniors officially residing in Florida might have returned to their northeastern roots during the summer, or other causes might have led to this Republican-friendly sample - which in any case demonstrates nicely that even if you give the Republicans an edge this year for enthusiasm (which this can approximate), their terrible candidates just aren't playing well with the general public.

I'm not so sure. Scott is a medicare fraud kingpin, which generally doesn't play well with voters who register D or I. Should McCollum eke out a win, the corrupt state GOP issues will weigh him down significantly. Sink has an honestly good shot; while the two Rs are going uber-nasty, Sink is polishing her environmental bonafides and generally shoring up her base.

I wouldn't rate the climate as anti-democratic party, more like anti-incumbent. Curiously, the big races in FL will be lacking incumbents. Should be interesting.

Sink from what I've read has run a lackluster campaign, and ultimately she'll have to do better to really win in November. Rick Scott has handed her an opportunity like matta from the sky, but she ultimately can't win in a big state like Florida without running a good campaign. Rick Scott at this point looks like he'll win the primary per all polling, and he can bury Sink under saturation attack ads just as he did McCollum if she lets him.

A general electorate is more resistant to Scott's tactics than a primary electorate, but resistant doesn't mean "immune," and you can get to 51% doing what Scott's doing if your opponent simultaneously campaigns poorly.